The prevalence of chronic ankle instability and associated self-reported function in professional ballet dancers in South Africa

[摘要] Introduction and aim:Chronic ankle instability (CAI) is characterised by a regular sense of the ankle givingway and recurrent sprains. This condition is thought to arise following acute anklesprains. Due to a high ankle sprain rate, as well as other sport-specific factors, CAImay be a significant problem in professional ballet dancers. Previous studies haveinvestigated the prevalence of CAI in dancer populations, but no studies have beendone on South African dancer populations and none examined the functional impactthis condition might have on this population. The aim of this study was to determinethe prevalence of CAI, describe the level of associated self-reported function inprofessional ballet dancers in South Africa and to determine if dancers with CAI differin respect to ankle injury history, treatment of previous ankle injuries and thepresence of pain during functional activities in comparison to dancers who have notdeveloped CAIMethodology:Three professional ballet companies in South Africa were visited by the researcherwho supervised the completion of the following questionnaires: the Identification ofFunctional Ankle Instability Questionnaire (IdFAI); the Foot and Ankle AbilityMeasure (FAAM); and the Dance Functional Outcome System (DFOS); as well as aself-compiled, literature-based injury history questionnaire. Descriptive statistics,namely frequencies and percentages for categorical data and medians andpercentiles for continuous data were calculated. Dancers with/without CAI wereassociated by means of Fisher's exact test for categorical data and Kruskal-Wallistest for continuous data.Results:Thirty-three dancers were included. Approximately 76% of the participants reportedhaving sustained at least one significant ankle sprain and 88% of those went on todevelop CAI. A total of 67% of participants included in the analysis had CAI. Theself-reported function of the participants suffering from CAI was not found to besignificantly affected. The median score for dancers who had CAI was 95% on theFAAM (Activities of daily living subscale), 88% on the FAAM (Sport subscale) and93% on the DFOS. Dancers with CAI demonstrated a tendency to experience morepain in the previously injured ankle during functional activities when compared todancers who have not developed CAI.Conclusion(s):Although the prevalence of CAI in professional ballet dancers in South Africa wasfound to be high, their self-reported function was not significantly affected. Thesefindings could stimulate further research to identify possible explanations for thereported level of function despite injury.

[发布机构] University of the Free State